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Game Development Based on Experience/1.4.3
There are a lot of factors that go into creating a highly rated game. This article aims to provide the information needed to create good games that earn high review scores. Things to avoid: *Developing two games in a row with exactly the same Topic/Genre/Second Genre. *Developing a sequel or expansion less than 40 weeks after the previous version. *Developing a sequel using the same engine. (Does not apply to expansions) The process of creating a game can be divided into two major parts: Pre-production and Development. Pre-production phase During pre-production is when the major decisions for the game are made. Choices available during pre-production: *Game Title. The game's name. *Size. This effects the amount of time it takes to develop the game it also alters the cost of development. Small games are difficult to reach an average score of 10. *Target Audience. *Topic. The general theme of the game (military, fantasy, sci-fi etc.). *Genre. *Platform. *Game Engine. The choice of Genre is the most important one that is made during pre-production. The genre influences most choices that will be made during the development phase. Topic/Genre combinations A big part of pre-production is to chose the game's topic and genre. The combination of topic and genre can result in either a "Great Combo" or a "Strange Combo". Getting a great combo does not guarantee good reviews. The combo modifier is only a factor in the final score. However, not getting a great combo will most likely limit your game with scores of 6 or less. Single Genre Combos Multi-Genre Combos The only way to get a "Great Combo" for multi-genre games is to use two genres that when used on their own with the chosen topic result in a "Great Combo". This means that topics like Surgery can not get "Great Combo" on multi-genre games. -source Genre/Platform combinations Each genre has its own popularity on each platform. Your choice of genre, relative to platform, slightly affects the review scores. The higher is the sales modifier of the selected plataform, the more sales you will get with that genre. Based on Raw Data. ''Best choices for each genre are '''bold and underlined Platform/Target audience combinations You will occasionally get messages about matches or mismatches of target audience and platform you have chosen. Your choice of audience has a minor effect on the review score, it primarily effects the number of sales your game will generate. The higher is the sales modifier of the selected plataform, the more sales you will get with that target audience. -source '''''Based on Raw Data. Development phase Design sliders allow the player to control the time allocation for the various aspects of the project. The higher a slider is set to with respect to others, the more allocated time it will receive during development, which can be previewed at the bottom bar of the game development screen. Allocating sliders has two main consequences: - Allocating certain thresholds of allotted time to certain fields can increase or decrease game quality - Amount of Design and Technology points added to the game during development is proportional to the time allocated to relevant part (for example, allocating more time to Engine will give more Tech points, while allocating more time to Story/Quests will give more Design points) Game quality and correct Tech/Design balance (exact value you must aim for is based on the chosen genre) is very important during rating calculation. So, to sum it all up, you should allocate your sliders like this: - Look at the table below and note balance goal and fields with pluses/minuses for your chosen genre (or combo) - Make sure you assign over 40% allotted time to a "+" field at least twice during whole development process - Make sure you never allocate <20% to a "+" or >40% to a "-" during whole development process - Aside from that, assign sliders accordingly in order to finish inside the margin of 25% around the Tech/Design balance goal for your genre (or combo) Remember, it is the bottom composite bar consisting of three parts (located under the sliders) that is important, not how much percentage you assign to each slider individually. All those 40%'s and 20%'s refer to the relative size of the field's part on the bottom bar. Based on Raw game data. Or For multi-genre combinations, the values are weighted with the first chosen genre being twice as important as the second one. Refer to the Raw game data for more information on how the following values were calculated. The point of multi-genres is too eliminate a genre's requirements, giving you more flexibility with what features to cram in. For example, Strategy/Adventure and Strategy/RPG has only 3 "+" fields and everything else is not bound by rules, while if you'd be making Strategy or RPG, you'd have 6 "+" fields and 1 "-" field to worry about, therefore, multi-genre gives you more creative freedom when you combine genres properly. Best to keep it to large and AAA games only, though - as at the lower levels the added freedom, it doesn't really give more options. Specialization Training To specialize in a specific slider you will need to meet required levels of design and technology. This can also serve as a guide for which employees to use for each slider. Great games need employees focused on either design or technology, as well as employees with a good balance of both. Save your well balanced employees for phase #3. Maybe a better version: DOWNLOAD: Print Version Category:Results Optimization